#(in my defense i won SET many times against this super smart kid like that kid is gonna win important prizes just wait for it)

[aroaceofthesea]

I shouldnt be this happy about beating a bunch of 15 year olds at board games

[violetwolfraven]

eek also this is a lot but ikeshot for 7, 14, 26, 33, 39 or 43?

Angst in general.

Nightmares.

You have a scar and I asked about it and it’s really angsty.

I thought I lost you and you need to be more careful you dumbass.

and

You fought me (verbally or physically) and I am s h o o k.

*cracks knuckes* aight then.

I haven’t written ikeshot yet! This’ll be my first time figuring out how I wanna portray their dynamic, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’m gonna do all of them except 33 cause that one doesn’t really work with the idea I have but I can combine all the others.

...

This wasn’t the first time Ike had stayed the night in Brooklyn, but it was the first he’d been woken up by a jolt.

It had taken him months to get this far, the point where he was sharing a bed with a Brooklyn boy, where he was pretty sure he was in love with said Brooklyn boy, where he was even welcome in Brooklyn after dark.

It had been a long and confusing road, starting a couple weeks after they won the strike.

See, Mike did this thing with his lover where they were super paranoid about getting caught. And yeah, that was good for safety, when courting a boy could get you killed or arrested, but Mike and Jojo took it to a whole new level, almost never even sitting on the same side of a room while outside the Lodging House.

And as much as Ike liked that his brother was keeping safe, this was also really fucking annoying, because it meant he had to deal with the pining.

So, he’d asked to tag along to Sheepshead with Race for a day, figuring a day of alone time with his boy might tone down Mike’s annoyingness a little. And Race occasionally took a partner to Brooklyn with him, anyway. He hadn’t done it in a while, but nothing bad had happened before.

And besides, since the strike, inter-borough relations had been better than ever out of a proud kind of solidarity. No big deal, right?

Wrong. They’d split up for maximum efficiency, and barely an hour later Ike was getting dragged away from the entrance to the races he was staking out and into an alley across the street, by which time he was getting thrown against a wall before he even got a look at who was dragging him.

Then he’d looked up, already raising his fists, and seen probably the tallest boy in New York.

Ike had remembered seeing him at the rally, this kid about his age who usually stuck pretty close to Spot Conlon, and he’d made the mistake of lowering his guard.

“Hey! I remember you! You’s Brooklyn’s second, right? What was your name again? Uh... Heat?”

This kid smirked, “Hotshot.”

Then he’d punched Ike in the face.

It was hard enough that Ike was knocked to the ground, but he was on his feet again in an instant, raising his fists again.

“I’m Ike,” he panted, “And I’m here—“

He’d been cut off by having to dodge another punch, trying to throw one of his own, but only getting kneed in the stomach after Hotshot blocked it.

Still, he’d raised his fists again, coughing as he tried to ignore the urge to curl in on himself.

“Don’t know when to give up, do ya?”

Ike smiled, still gasping for breath, “Nope! Don’t mean we have to fight, though.”

Hotshot just punched him again, “You’re on the wrong side of the bridge, Manhattan boy.”

“And that’s grounds enough to soak someone?”

“Hey!”

At that point, Hotshot froze, turning to see Race running into the alley.

“He’s with me, Hotshot! Jeez!”

“Well, he didn’t say—“

“Ya didn’t give me a chance to,” Ike interrupted.

Race had helped Ike up, glaring at the Brooklyn boy despite how Hotshot was much taller and stronger.

“I ain’t gonna tell on you, but kid, you need to learn to think before ya start swingin’. If Spot asks about me, I’m sellin’ with Albert today.”

Race had helped Ike get home, then actually gone to sell with Albert, but on the way back, he’d answered Ike’s questions, about how someone that young and hotheaded could help lead the biggest borough in New York.

“Hotshot’s young, you’re right. He’s your age, actually—14. And yeah, he’s defensive. But I’s known him a while, and there’s more to him than that. The short version is that he’s either a good friend or a bad enemy. Once ya got his loyalty, ya got it forever. That’s why he’s Brooklyn’s second. He’s one of the few Spot actually trusts.”

With that description combined with the way Ike had honestly never met anyone who punched that hard, he was just a little intrigued. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but he’d went back to Brooklyn a week later, not selling this time, but just looking for that one Brooklyn boy.

He’d found him, selling at Coney. And Brooklyn boys usually didn’t sell with partners, so Ike hadn’t had trouble sneaking up on him.

“Hey.”

That was the only warning he gave before putting a hand on Hotshot’s shoulder to spin him around and punch him in the face.

Hotshot had wheeled back, raising his own fist.

“You got ‘bout four hits on me for no reason—I thinks I deserve one free shot!”

Slowly, Hotshot had lowered his hand, still glaring at him, but not as much.

“Fair is fair. Now go back to Manhattan.”

Ike was going to, honestly, but then figured, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ and didn’t.

“So, how often do ya beat up kids from other boroughs without askin’ for their story?”

“Are you completely fearless, or just stupid?”

“Both, probably. Ya gonna answer the question, or punch my daylights out?”

“I ain’t decided yet.”

“Well, while you’re decidin’, I heard you’re close with Spot Conlon. What’s he really like? Is he always that scary, or is it just an act?”

For the next several weeks, it was like that. It was Ike coming over, finding Hotshot wherever he was, and annoying the hell out of him.

And Hotshot always said he was going to punch him, but he never did. Slowly, he started actually answering Ike’s questions, at least a few of them, and asking a few in return. Ike wouldn’t necessarily call them friends, but they definitely knew each other better, now.

“One of these days, I’m actually gonna punch ya,” Hotshot grumbled once, when Ike asked a question a little too personal.

“Every time ya say that, I believe you less,” Ike said cheerfully, “Anyway, I’s heard Brooklyn’s got great sunrises. Is that true?”

Hotshot actually smiled a little, “I dunno if it’s any better than Manhattan, but yeah, we’s gotten some pretty nice ones over here.”

It took a couple months, but Ike started figuring out that by even talking to him, Hotshot was letting down his guard, little by little. He let it down a bit more as he started letting Ike touch him, allowing a handshake when they met up, or a punch in the shoulder in a friendly way.

Once he realized how much Hotshot was trusting him by doing those little things, Ike realized that against his better judgement, he trusted him, too. He liked spending time with Hotshot, probably too much.

Definitely too much, with how he was stupid enough to walk through a November rainstorm months after they met just to see him.

By the time he got to Brooklyn, he was freezing, wet, and disoriented enough that he’d ended up passing out in front of a random store, just so the awning would keep the rain off.

He’d woken up in the Brooklyn Lodging House in the middle of the night, with Hotshot holding him in a bed.

Actually, he’d kind of jolted awake, and apparently woken up Hotshot with him as the Brooklyn boy whispered an explanation to him.

“Hildy found ya damn near frozen. By the time she got ya back here, you were almost dead and needed body heat bad.”

“Oh,” Ike whispered back, almost too terrified to move or even speak.

“That’s all ya got to say, you idiot?” Hotshot hissed, clearly angry as his arm around Ike’s waist tightened, “What were you thinkin’, walkin’ here in a storm?”

Ike was still pretty confused, and for once, he couldn’t even think of something to say.

Then Hotshot sighed, “I thought you were gonna die.”

Oh. So that was what this was about. He wasn’t angry—not at Ike, really, at least.

Ike had finally let himself relax against the taller boy’s chest, enjoying how warm Hotshot actually was.

“Ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Hotshot had exhaled kind of sharply, and Ike was praying to a god he didn’t believe in that he wasn’t misreading things, but he’d rolled over so he was facing Brooklyn’s second, their faces barely inches apart, though it was so dark that Ike couldn’t really see him.

Beyond that, he hadn’t wanted to make the first move, mostly out of fear. In Manhattan, it was pretty common knowledge that many of them liked the same sex, but Brooklyn was different. It was less of a family and more of almost a gang. Ike wasn’t sure how Hotshot would react if he did anything.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to do anything, because yes, Ike liked boys, and he’d made peace with that, but being with one made it dangerous. Mike wasn’t the only was who was terrified of getting caught, for good reason.

Then Hotshot’s hand had come up to touch a scar on the side of Ike’s face. One he guessed he’d probably never noticed before because their faces had never been this close.

It had been from a pretty bad wound, but was so faded that it looked minor now, because he’d gotten it so long ago.

“I didn’t give you this, did I?”

Ike shook his head, “No. I’ve had that scar since I was 8.”

“How’d ya get a scar so bad it still shows now when you were 8?”

Ike had taken a deep breath, forced down panic over events he’d rather forget, and decided to tell him the truth.

“My brother and me,” he whispered, “Our parents died when we were really young. So’s we got brought up by our mom’s sister and her lover... her lover who was... also a woman.”

Ike paused there, waiting for Hotshot’s reaction.

There really wasn’t one, and he’d felt a bit of relief at that.

“They was good at bein’ subtle,” Ike continued, “So nobody suspected anythin’ for a long while. But then when me and Mike were 8... some bad people figured it out and... and those men came in the night and set the house on fire. I guess we’s lucky to have made it out at all—our aunts weren’t that lucky—but...”

His voice trailed off. Ike didn’t like admitting that he wasn’t this happy-go-lucky kid all the time. He hadn’t told anyone about this, ever. Mike had told Jack, years ago, to explain why they had bad days sometimes, but Ike had never been able to talk about it.

He’d felt Hotshot take a deep breath, and then the other boy had pulled him closer, right against his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination when, later, once Ike was halfway into a dream, he thought he might have felt a kiss being pressed to his hair.

Ike had known right there that something had changed between them, and though Mike gave him hell for staying out all night the next morning, he couldn’t say it wasn’t worth it.

He didn’t know if they were... what, did you call it courting? He didn’t know if what they were doing had a label or if spending a significant amount of their free time together qualified as being together.

But, after that first night, Ike did spend the night in Brooklyn a few more times, sharing a bed with Hotshot under the excuse that he’d lost track of time the Brooklyn Lodging House didn’t have one to spare. In reality, he stayed over because sharing a bed, sharing warmth with Brooklyn’s second... it was nice. It was somehow different from crawling in with Mike if nightmares got bad or huddling on the fire escape with Crutchie and Jack if he didn’t make enough to pay for his bed one night.

Sharing a bed with Hotshot was comforting even when nothing was actually wrong. It was safe and warm and it made Ike feel all fuzzy inside and...

Not that he knew how to say it, not that he could say it, but Ike was pretty sure this was what falling in love felt like.

It was scary, but he didn’t want to stop falling.

Of course, he wasn’t planning on telling Hotshot how he felt. Not unless the other boy made the first move. Or unless they decided to get drunk for some reason. Or if it happened to come up in conversation.

Okay... maybe Ike really wanted to tell him, but he just didn’t know how to go about it.

Well, he’d been sitting on this for a long while already, so Ike still really didn’t know when he was going to tell him, but he still felt the need to follow when he felt Hotshot jolt awake, just before rolling out of bed and leaving the room.

“Hotshot?”

Ike followed him out onto the fire escape, finding the taller boy staring down over the edge, a death grip on the railing.

“Hotshot, are you okay?”

Ike moved to stand next to him, making sure it was clear and visible what he was doing as he put a hand over Hotshot’s on the railing.

For a few seconds, he didn’t react. He didn’t even give a sign that he’d heard or even felt Ike touching him.

Then, slowly, he let go of the railing, flipping his hand over so he could intertwine their fingers.

Hotshot exhaled shakily, most of the tension leaving his frame. Ike took that as a sign that it was okay to lean his head against his shoulder.

“Ya gonna tell me what this is about?”

For a minute, he thought he wasn’t going to.

Then Hotshot took a wavering breath and spoke, still staring over the edge of the fire escape.

“Ya once asked how many kids I’s beat up for no reason,” he said quietly, “I don’t know. I get in fights a lot. I get angry and... and usually, Spot tells me where to aim it, but it ain’t always enough. I always have more and if I don’t put it somewhere, it’ll just build till I... till I explode.”

Ike nodded. He understood. He already knew this about Hotshot. He’d figured out that anger was his drive a long time ago.

“I... I learned that from my folks.”

Ike froze. In all their conversations over the last few months, Hotshot had never shared any personal information beyond the fact that he saw Spot as an older brother.

“They’d get angry,” Hotshot said shakily, “And when they’d explode, they’d...”

His voice faltered, and Ike touched his arm with his free hand, trying to ground him. He could read between the lines and though it made him angry and sad as hell, he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

“I... I got myself out when I was 12,” he mumbled, “Finally just couldn’t take it anymore and ran like hell—ended up here. And I know it’s been a couple years, now, but... but I still go back there some nights, when I’m sleepin’.”

His voice was shaking a little, by the end of that, and Ike tugged on his arm gently so he could turn Hotshot to face him.

He wasn’t sure he was going to allow it, but to his relief, Hotshot hugged him back, leaning down to bury his face in Ike’s shoulder.

“You’re here,” Ike whispered, “They can’t hurt ya here, Hotshot. You’re safe.”

Hotshot wasn’t crying, but he was shaking a little in the cold. It was winter, for crying out loud. Winter at night. And though the Brooklyn kids did wear sleeves like reasonable people in winter, most of them didn’t sleep in their shirts.

“Can we take this inside?” Ike asked, knowing that he was cold, even being a little more dressed for the weather than Hotshot was.

The taller boy nodded shakily and they went inside, curling up together in that bunk, the closeness for comfort as much as warmth.

Feeling brave for a minute, Ike leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on the Hotshot’s forehead.

Hotshot went rigid, but the expression on his face was pure surprise, not any kind of disgust, and he didn’t pull away.

Ike offered him a small smile before rolling over, so as not to push things.

He definitely wasn’t complaining when Hotshot pulled him against his chest to sleep for the rest of the night.

[mastcomm]

Central Michigan’s Left Tackle Factory (Some Assembly Required)

MIAMI — Turning to his left and looking to make a play, Nick Mullens tried to flip a screen pass in a meaningless December game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos in 2018, only to have Shelby Harris, a defensive tackle for the Broncos, knock the pass off its trajectory.

As the ball hung in the air, Joe Staley saw his opportunity.

Staley, the longest-tenured player on the San Francisco 49ers and a six-time Pro Bowler at left tackle, knew exactly what to do in that situation: knock the ball down. But instead of doing the right thing, Staley snatched the ball, spun to his left and plowed forward — and was tackled for a 5-yard loss. He then rose to his feet and celebrated as if he had scored a game-winning touchdown.

“The correct thing to do is bat it down,” Staley acknowledged to reporters after the game. “But a lineman sees the ball in the air and you’re not not going to catch it, right? It’s like telling me, ‘Hey, there’s pizza here, but don’t have a slice.’”

The 49ers won that game, improving to 3-10, but Coach Kyle Shanahan suggested that Staley might be in line for a fine, adding that the play had revealed a certain character flaw in Staley, then 34.

“Joe refuses to fully believe he’s an O-lineman,” Shanahan said. “He’s always trying to show us how athletic he is.”

Of course, Staley, who will be protecting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo’s blind side against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Sunday, was not always an offensive lineman. When he arrived at Central Michigan in 2004, he was a 230-pound tight end who had been a track star at Rockford High School in Michigan. And even after the Chippewas asked him to bulk up and play tackle — a process that saw Staley gain around 75 pounds — he retained much of his agility and burst.

“He still runs like it,” Garoppolo said when asked about Staley’s days as a track star. “Dude can fly and he’ll let you know about it, too.”

It is not all talk. At his pro day in 2007, Staley’s 20-yard split in the 40-yard dash was just 0.01 of a second slower than the one recorded by Kansas City’s Travis Kelce in 2013, and just 0.08 slower than the one recorded by San Francisco’s George Kittle in 2017, despite the 305-pound Staley’s outweighing both All-Pro tight ends by 50 pounds.

Staley argues he could still play tight end, but he doesn’t expect to have his number called anytime soon. “It wouldn’t be smart,” he said. “We have a pretty good one right now.”

When told about that comment, Kittle concurred.

“One-hundred percent,” he said. “I am holding Joe Staley back.”

Getting Big

Super Bowls are typically littered with tales of random connections, but few can match a parallel between this year’s teams: Both the 49ers and the Chiefs have starting left tackles who were first-round picks out of Central Michigan, and both gained more than 75 pounds in college to make that happen. It is just the second time in 54 Super Bowls that both starting left tackles came from the same college, a rarity made especially surprising since Kansas City’s Eric Fisher and San Francisco’s Staley are the only first-round picks in Central Michigan’s long history.

Staley came first, after being recruited as a tight end and then starring as a tackle. He put in countless hours with the team’s strength coach, Paul Longo, and that helped lead San Francisco to select him with the 28th pick in the 2007 draft. At the time, he was the highest draft pick in Central Michigan history.

A few years after Staley left campus, Fisher arrived as an unheralded left tackle who stood 6 feet 7 inches but weighed only 225 pounds. Fisher, who described Staley as an inspiration, bulked his way up to 306 pounds before the 2013 N.F.L. combine, and was rewarded for that effort when Kansas City selected him with the first overall pick in the draft — making him just the fifth offensive lineman in the draft’s 84-year history to receive that distinction.

Plas Presnell, who spent 31 years as an assistant coach, recruiter and football operations manager for Central Michigan’s football program, said it was no coincidence that Staley and Fisher had gone through such radical transformations during their years in Mount Pleasant. As a Mid-American Conference program that did not have the recruiting machines of college football’s heavy hitters, Central Michigan had to look for players who had the frame for a position, even if they were still lacking the necessary bulk.

“A lot of coaches want a finished product, a kid that’s close to 300 pounds in high school,” Presnell said. “So a guy like Joe would get passed up. Same thing with Eric. But you see the structure of their body, you watch them on film and see their athleticism, and you know what you can get.”

The methods by which the players bulked up, however, were different.

Staley described a painstaking approach to adding 25 pounds a year, which involved going to some extremes.

“I was waking myself up at like 2 in the morning having huge, huge weight-gainer shakes,” he said. Coach Brian Kelly, now at Notre Dame, gave Staley a simple mantra: “Eat everything you can.”

For Fisher, who arrived at college skinnier than many wide receivers, the change in size had more to do with access to Central Michigan’s meal plan than any sort of well-orchestrated effort.

“It was the first time in my life that I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted,” he said. “It was pretty nice.”

In a league that grapples with obesity problems, particularly among retired players, tales of young men making a concerted effort to gain the weight of a full-size punching bag opens up a larger question of what happens after they stop playing football.

Joe Thomas, a retired left tackle who starred for the Cleveland Browns, said he had added 70 pounds to his natural frame to compete at the pro level. The thing he had most looked forward to about retirement, he said, was the ability to eat only when he was hungry, and his transformation over the last two years could serve as something of a model for both Staley and Fisher after their playing days. He is more than 50 pounds lighter since leaving the N.F.L. after the 2017 season.

“I reversed everything I was doing,” Thomas said. “No more freezer pizzas before bed.”

While Fisher said he believed his weight had been added in a natural way and that he didn’t struggle to maintain it, Staley — the track star who once ran the 200 in 21.9 seconds — said that he still felt like a smaller man who had to endure food he didn’t love in order to maintain bulk.

“I love organic stuff, but I am an offensive lineman,” he said. “So if I were to eat completely healthy all the time, then I would not be an offensive lineman anymore.”

Dropping weight would undoubtedly be good for his palate, and for his long-term health, but he showed his cards a bit by adding that if he were to lose that weight, he could probably just play tight end instead.

Staley’s Time to Shine?

Staley and Fisher praised each other in interviews ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl, and said they kept in touch thanks to their Central Michigan connection. The parallels between them have continued, as the remarkably durable players struggled with injuries this season, only to round back into Pro Bowl-worthy shape in time for the playoffs.

But in an evenly matched game between superb teams, any element of surprise could be the difference between a win or a loss — which inspired a question to San Francisco’s players about whether Staley, in a season that set a record for receiving touchdowns by 300-pound players, could contribute in the passing game if the 49ers needed him.

“Of course,” said Emmanuel Sanders, a veteran wide receiver. “You see his footwork? You see the way he moves?”

Nick Bosa, San Francisco’s star rookie at defensive end, offered Staley’s 40-yard dash time off the top of his head, and Garoppolo brought up Staley’s time in the 200, saying he would not be surprised by any of his left tackle’s athletic feats.

Garoppolo’s camera-ready smile took a brief recess, however, when he was asked if that meant he would be O.K. with having a play called for Staley, and he deadpanned, “I didn’t say that.”

But Presnell, who has known Staley for nearly 20 years, said the only thing missing was opportunity. Asked if Staley would catch a ball thrown his way, Presnell was emphatic.

“There is no doubt,” he said.

Ken Belson contributed reporting.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/central-michigans-left-tackle-factory-some-assembly-required/

[junker-town]

Derek Barnett is one move away from NFL greatness

Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White says the Tennessee pass rusher could end up being one of the most productive in the draft this year, with just one more move in his tool kit.

At the end of my breakdown of Myles Garrett I mentioned Derek Barnett, whom I had occasion to watch lot of because I played for Tennessee and therefore still follow the team. I didn't watch most of his games live the last two years because I thought I was a jinx for awhile. I would DVR the games and watch them the next morning.

And maybe, at times, I take these kinds of things way too seriously. [Shrugs]

I will say that after I stopped watching live my quality of life improved tremendously. My blood pressure was lower, and I was in a much better mood overall from week to week. I don't think I'm ever going to go back to watching the games live so long as Butch Jones is still the coach.

But, I digress.

Barnett was one of the few projected first-round picks who I was already pretty familiar with. I had seen repeatedly what this guy was capable of doing since he was a freshman.

However, there's still a huge difference between watching the day after a game for my own edification and actually breaking down the tape to assess Barnett's potential as an NFL prospect. So I was looking forward to seeing how my perception of Barnett's skills might change after taking a closer look.

Barnett's ability to bend as he turned the corner as a pass rusher is special, possibly better than Garrett's as I said in that breakdown. As they are wont to do, folks took issue with that statement, so I decided to start this breakdown off by showing my work, so to speak. Here’s Barnett hitting that gangster lean as he wins an edge rush.

And a few more: Against Alabama, Florida and Texas A&M.

You folks who were big mad after you read the Garrett breakdown, can we touch and agree that I was actually right, at least about Barnett's lean and keep it moving?

I'll tell you straight out that I prefer Barnett to Garrett as a football player. However, I can definitely see why some talent evaluators may favor Garrett as a prospect because when you look at his combine workout and his measurables, Garrett's ceiling is sky high. Barnett's workout numbers weren't quite as impressive.

But when I watched Barnett's tape his performance made me catch the holy ghost a few times (if you are Southern and/or country you will definitely get this reference). I never got the same feeling watching Garrett.

Do I think that Barnett is a "perfect" prospect? I wouldn't go that far.

There are a few things that I think he could improve on in the NFL that could make him into an even more dominant player. Things that he really needs to work on if he wants to become a superstar on the next level.

He needs to develop a better second inside move.

Barnett’s situation reminds me of a guy we had here in Tampa by the name of Stylez White, no relation (Uncle Rukus voice). Stylez had a real knack for turning the corner even though he wasn't blazing fast. The problem was that Stylez only had a hump move as a counter, and it’s hard as hell to try to win with a hump move repeatedly. He never developed a second counter-inside move, and I believe it held him back during his career.

Barnett has one decent inside move. I call it a reach through, where Barnett takes two steps upfield, swats the tackles' hand as he steps inside with his inside foot, and reaches through on a quick arm over with his outside arm around the elbow of the tackle's inside arm and steps through with his outside foot.

He may not have the same kind of success with that move in the pros because it works best after you force the tackle to start bailing, looking for a speed rush. Barnett won a lot with his edge rushes in college with good get off, hip turn, hand work and lean, but not with straight speed. And it’s usually that crazy speed that gets NFL tackles bailing out. Even if Barnett is good winning around the edge (and I think he will be), that doesn't mean he will get tackles to jump out enough to open themselves up to that kind of quick inside move.

He needs to develop a late spin as a counter-move to his speed rushes. Here’s why.

When he realizes he can't beat a tackle around the corner and is about to get pushed deep, opening up lanes for the quarterback to scramble, he can dip with his inside shoulder to get the tackle to lurch forward and step through with his inside foot to set up the pivot. Then, he can push off his outside foot and swing his outside arm around to give him the momentum he needs to finish the spin by using his outside elbow to knock the tackle by and to keep him upright so Barnett can have a clean win at or near the level of the quarterback.

Was that confusing at all? It's much easier for me to show a guy how to do a late spin move than is to explain it.

If he can develop an inside spin move, it will force left tackles to play him honest instead of bailing out to make it harder for him to turn the corner.

Right now, Barnett's spin moves are hot garbage.

The one spin move I saw that did work was when Barnett faked inside and then spun back outside. That's a move I used in the pros — ask Kurt Warner — so I have to say I was impressed.

The key to a spin move working well is selling a speed rush at first. That means everything has to look like a speed rush to the tackle.

It was blatant that Barnett was spinning away before he ever planted with the inside foot. He was just going through the motions of a speed rush to try to get to the spinning part of the move.

That’s a common mistake for young defensive linemen. I was blessed to be able to watch guys like Chuck Smith and Todd Kelly do spin moves the correct way while I was in college and learn from watching them kill fools while I was still riding the bench. With just a little bit of coaching, Barnett could end up being great at it.

(Somebody tell him that Chuck Smith, another fellow #VFL, is an excellent teacher of spin moves.)

If Barnett can get that late spin move down, most NFL tackles are going to have a helluva time trying to block him one-on-one. With the late spin, he can get clean wins against blockers. Quarterbacks will end up drifting into his waiting arms thinking he is way upfield and no longer a threat.

Without it, his coaches will be pulling their hair out watching him running 10 yards upfield while the quarterback is breaking the pocket and slicing up the secondary. Aaron Rodgers would be licking his chops!

I can't say that for sure if someone will teach him that. There are a lot more shitty defensive line coaches in the NFL than most folks want to admit. He has the physical tools to easily come up with a better counter move, but I’m not going to take it for granted that he will. I have to hold that as a knock against him ... for now.

Stop jumping offsides

I am also concerned about some of the offsides penalties Barnett committed, but only because once I got to the pros Rod Marinelli didn't allow us to jump offsides.

He drilled it into us every day to get a "credit card" alignment with the football and to get off without guessing. I'm not going to say that Barnett was definitely guessing snap counts a lot, as many of his best rushes came on the road, but that's usually what jumping offsides a lot points to.

On the flip side I do know that not every defensive line coach is Rod Marinelli, so for them jumping offsides a few times might not be that big of a deal. Especially if you are getting more than your fair share of sacks and pressures on other plays and forcing the offensive tackles to commit false starts from time to time as well.

Both of those requirements apply to Barnett in the games that I watched.

For most teams, his jumping offsides will be a small issue, not a huge knock. I know from experience that with a good defensive line coach its something he can correct in short order.

That is about the extent of my complaints about Barnett's tape, however. The kid is pretty damned good, otherwise.

What position should Barnett play?

Well, there is one other thing, but I'm not exactly sure that it’s a knock. I'm not 100 percent sure what Barnett's best position would be, mostly because I see a diverse skill set.

He has shorter arms at 32 1/8 inches, but he also plays with very good hand technique and with good leverage. I'm not sure how many reps Barnett is going to put up with 225 on the bar, if he ever actually does it, but you can see the kid has enough strength to get the job done in the trenches.

I saw him line up in a six technique over tight ends, and he did a good job with that. He does not play afraid. Barnett will definitely stick his nose in there when a kickout block or a puller is coming his way, and he stands his ground against base blocks. I'm not worried about him as a run defender at all, no matter where you put him on the edge.

In contrast with Garrett, Barnett played with a whoooole lotta dog in him too, which also gives him an edge.

The question is where would Barnett be most beneficial as a pass rusher, because make no mistake, pass rushing is his top selling point. If he goes somewhere with a smart DC who will put him in positions to exploit matchups, I don't think there's any question that Barnett could be a consistent double-digit sack guy. At the end of the day Barnett is just a really good football player. He is going to make plays, but in the right system he could make a lot more of them.

I was thinking about another guy whose film I really liked coming out, whose tape also clearly showed to me that he was just a really good football player. A guy who I wasn't quite sure where he would play as a pro, but thought was going to end up being very productive.

That player was Trey Flowers, a second-year player who had seven sacks during the regular season and 2.5 sacks as the unofficial MVP for the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

It’s crazy how similar Flowers' workout numbers and physical dimensions were to Barnett's, except for Flower's superb 36.5-inch vertical.

I don't think Barnett will end up being used inside as much as Flowers, but if a team does decide to do that, Barnett can handle it.

I lean towards Barnett as an outside linebacker who lines up primarily on the left side. My Vols certainly had him dropping enough to show that he has the ability to do that.

And hell, he even had a few really nice breaks on the football.

I could also see Barnett as a left defensive end in a 4-3 attacking style defense, who maybe kicks inside some on passing downs. It just dawned on me earlier how appropriate it was that Barnett broke Reggie White's career sack record at Tennessee rushing from left defensive end (where Reggie spent most of his Hall of Fame professional career). He only played 10 reps there in the games that I watched.

I'm not sure about Barnett being a good pass rusher inside, because everything happens faster in there. I haven't seen him do it with my eyes in the five games that I re-watched, but I wouldn't put it past him to be good at it, either.

Here's a secret: guys who show themselves to be good football players on tape tend to end up doing well on the next level. I don't care what their 40 time is or how high they jump. Those things matter, but good tape is always going to take precedent. Barnett has been balling since day one at Tennessee. He had 10 sacks as a freshman and has only gotten better since then.

Barnett stacks up against the best of the best

Hell, most of Barnett's success has come against SEC competition, not cupcakes. I watched him against four SEC teams and Nebraska, good competition for this breakdown. Remember when I talked about expecting Wisconsin left tackle Ryan Ramczyk to make good college pass rushers ordinary? Barnett made good college left tackles look average at best.

I hear Alabama's left tackle is supposed to be pretty good.

Barnett beat him for a sack, too.

Cam Robinson is apparently the best left tackle that the SEC has to offer in the draft this year — maybe the best left tackle in the draft period — to hear folks tell it. Barnett still gave him the business.

Even when teams were scheming to double Barnett, knowing that he was one of the only consistent playmakers for Tennessee, he still had at least one sack in each of the five games I watched.

Bruh.

Bruhhhhhhhhhhh.

Barnett’s biggest game

You could throw away all of the other games, but that bowl game against Nebraska? That was a first-round type performance.

Both Nebraska and Tennessee were well aware of the fact that Barnett was one sack away from breaking Reggie's record.

During the game it seemed like the Cornhuskers were more concerned with keeping Barnett from breaking the sack record against them than actually moving the ball or scoring on offense.

I can't really blame them considering how out of his mind Barnett played that game.

And Barnett still went out there and found a way to get a sack — really two, but he was robbed earlier in the game (Nebraska 6:21) — in the fourth quarter to both help seal the win and break the record. He also did it rushing from a side that he rarely rushed from. All this after he spent all day fighting against double teams and chip blocks.

Hell, look at the replay.

The right guard is trying like hell to help the right tackle, and the right tackle himself was trying to grab Barnett. All to no avail. Barnett was just too damn good for them both.

I'm pretty sure Barnett's wallet says "Bad Mother Fucker" on it.

In that bowl game, I had Barnett with:

The sack and the sack and caused fumble that they robbed him of earlier in the game.

Eight pressures (!)

Five other tackles.

Five other plays where I thought his effort was just outstanding.

Maybe Garrett had a game that was just as impressive, but I can't go by something I didn't see with my own two eyes.

And maybe it doesn't mean much to you, but seeing the whole Tennessee team go out to celebrate with Barnett showed me just how much his teammates love and respect him. I want guys who others gravitate to; that's Barnett all day long.

In closing, yes I get it that Garrett has a lot more potential and upside than Barnett because of his athletic ability and size. I'm just telling you don't be surprised if three years from now Barnett is having the better career, barring injury. There is also a good chance that Barnett is more ready to be a productive pass rusher right off the bat than Garrett.

There's no guarantees, but that's one way I could definitely see things going.

I think Jonathan Allen is a better prospect than both of them, but as far as pure edge rushers, the team you root for could do a lot worse than drafting Derek Barnett in the first round.

A lot worse!

Since I don't have access to all-22 for college football games I use the next best thing for my draft profiles and go to Draft Breakdown where they the TV copy of a bunch of top prospects' already cut up and ready to go. Also their site is compatible with the new NoHuddle app which turns your cell phone into a "cowboy clicker" which is pretty damn neat. For the purposes of this breakdown I watched Tennessee edge rusher Derek Barnett play against Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M, Alabama, and Nebraska. Those represented the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh (before the off week) and thirteenth games on Tennessee's schedule last season, respectively.

[mastcomm]

Central Michigan’s Left Tackle Factory (Some Assembly Required)

MIAMI — Turning to his left and looking to make a play, Nick Mullens tried to flip a screen pass in a meaningless December game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos in 2018, only to have Shelby Harris, a defensive tackle for the Broncos, knock the pass off its trajectory.

As the ball hung in the air, Joe Staley saw his opportunity.

Staley, the longest-tenured player on the San Francisco 49ers and a six-time Pro Bowler at left tackle, knew exactly what to do in that situation: knock the ball down. But instead of doing the right thing, Staley snatched the ball, spun to his left and plowed forward — and was tackled for a 5-yard loss. He then rose to his feet and celebrated as if he had scored a game-winning touchdown.

“The correct thing to do is bat it down,” Staley acknowledged to reporters after the game. “But a lineman sees the ball in the air and you’re not not going to catch it, right? It’s like telling me, ‘Hey, there’s pizza here, but don’t have a slice.’”

The 49ers won that game, improving to 3-10, but Coach Kyle Shanahan suggested that Staley might be in line for a fine, adding that the play had revealed a certain character flaw in Staley, then 34.

“Joe refuses to fully believe he’s an O-lineman,” Shanahan said. “He’s always trying to show us how athletic he is.”

Of course, Staley, who will be protecting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo’s blind side against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Sunday, was not always an offensive lineman. When he arrived at Central Michigan in 2004, he was a 230-pound tight end who had been a track star at Rockford High School in Michigan. And even after the Chippewas asked him to bulk up and play tackle — a process that saw Staley gain around 75 pounds — he retained much of his agility and burst.

“He still runs like it,” Garoppolo said when asked about Staley’s days as a track star. “Dude can fly and he’ll let you know about it, too.”

It is not all talk. At his pro day in 2007, Staley’s 20-yard split in the 40-yard dash was just 0.01 of a second slower than the one recorded by Kansas City’s Travis Kelce in 2013, and just 0.08 slower than the one recorded by San Francisco’s George Kittle in 2017, despite the 305-pound Staley’s outweighing both All-Pro tight ends by 50 pounds.

Staley argues he could still play tight end, but he doesn’t expect to have his number called anytime soon. “It wouldn’t be smart,” he said. “We have a pretty good one right now.”

When told about that comment, Kittle concurred.

“One-hundred percent,” he said. “I am holding Joe Staley back.”

Getting Big

Super Bowls are typically littered with tales of random connections, but few can match a parallel between this year’s teams: Both the 49ers and the Chiefs have starting left tackles who were first-round picks out of Central Michigan, and both gained more than 75 pounds in college to make that happen. It is just the second time in 54 Super Bowls that both starting left tackles came from the same college, a rarity made especially surprising since Kansas City’s Eric Fisher and San Francisco’s Staley are the only first-round picks in Central Michigan’s long history.

Staley came first, after being recruited as a tight end and then starring as a tackle. He put in countless hours with the team’s strength coach, Paul Longo, and that helped lead San Francisco to select him with the 28th pick in the 2007 draft. At the time, he was the highest draft pick in Central Michigan history.

A few years after Staley left campus, Fisher arrived as an unheralded left tackle who stood 6 feet 7 inches but weighed only 225 pounds. Fisher, who described Staley as an inspiration, bulked his way up to 306 pounds before the 2013 N.F.L. combine, and was rewarded for that effort when Kansas City selected him with the first overall pick in the draft — making him just the fifth offensive lineman in the draft’s 84-year history to receive that distinction.

Plas Presnell, who spent 31 years as an assistant coach, recruiter and football operations manager for Central Michigan’s football program, said it was no coincidence that Staley and Fisher had gone through such radical transformations during their years in Mount Pleasant. As a Mid-American Conference program that did not have the recruiting machines of college football’s heavy hitters, Central Michigan had to look for players who had the frame for a position, even if they were still lacking the necessary bulk.

“A lot of coaches want a finished product, a kid that’s close to 300 pounds in high school,” Presnell said. “So a guy like Joe would get passed up. Same thing with Eric. But you see the structure of their body, you watch them on film and see their athleticism, and you know what you can get.”

The methods by which the players bulked up, however, were different.

Staley described a painstaking approach to adding 25 pounds a year, which involved going to some extremes.

“I was waking myself up at like 2 in the morning having huge, huge weight-gainer shakes,” he said. Coach Brian Kelly, now at Notre Dame, gave Staley a simple mantra: “Eat everything you can.”

For Fisher, who arrived at college skinnier than many wide receivers, the change in size had more to do with access to Central Michigan’s meal plan than any sort of well-orchestrated effort.

“It was the first time in my life that I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted,” he said. “It was pretty nice.”

In a league that grapples with obesity problems, particularly among retired players, tales of young men making a concerted effort to gain the weight of a full-size punching bag opens up a larger question of what happens after they stop playing football.

Joe Thomas, a retired left tackle who starred for the Cleveland Browns, said he had added 70 pounds to his natural frame to compete at the pro level. The thing he had most looked forward to about retirement, he said, was the ability to eat only when he was hungry, and his transformation over the last two years could serve as something of a model for both Staley and Fisher after their playing days. He is more than 50 pounds lighter since leaving the N.F.L. after the 2017 season.

“I reversed everything I was doing,” Thomas said. “No more freezer pizzas before bed.”

While Fisher said he believed his weight had been added in a natural way and that he didn’t struggle to maintain it, Staley — the track star who once ran the 200 in 21.9 seconds — said that he still felt like a smaller man who had to endure food he didn’t love in order to maintain bulk.

“I love organic stuff, but I am an offensive lineman,” he said. “So if I were to eat completely healthy all the time, then I would not be an offensive lineman anymore.”

Dropping weight would undoubtedly be good for his palate, and for his long-term health, but he showed his cards a bit by adding that if he were to lose that weight, he could probably just play tight end instead.

Staley’s Time to Shine?

Staley and Fisher praised each other in interviews ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl, and said they kept in touch thanks to their Central Michigan connection. The parallels between them have continued, as the remarkably durable players struggled with injuries this season, only to round back into Pro Bowl-worthy shape in time for the playoffs.

But in an evenly matched game between superb teams, any element of surprise could be the difference between a win or a loss — which inspired a question to San Francisco’s players about whether Staley, in a season that set a record for receiving touchdowns by 300-pound players, could contribute in the passing game if the 49ers needed him.

“Of course,” said Emmanuel Sanders, a veteran wide receiver. “You see his footwork? You see the way he moves?”

Nick Bosa, San Francisco’s star rookie at defensive end, offered Staley’s 40-yard dash time off the top of his head, and Garoppolo brought up Staley’s time in the 200, saying he would not be surprised by any of his left tackle’s athletic feats.

Garoppolo’s camera-ready smile took a brief recess, however, when he was asked if that meant he would be O.K. with having a play called for Staley, and he deadpanned, “I didn’t say that.”

But Presnell, who has known Staley for nearly 20 years, said the only thing missing was opportunity. Asked if Staley would catch a ball thrown his way, Presnell was emphatic.

“There is no doubt,” he said.

Ken Belson contributed reporting.

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